Alexander Thorne / Recovering Artist Next Door / APPROVED

[moonjavas]

__________________________________________I stand in the presence
__________________________________________of the destroyed god:

a rubble of tendons,
knuckles and raw sinews.
Knowing that the work is mine

how can I love you?__________________________________________

 

[moonjavas]

alexander esen thorne
RECOVERING ARTIST NEXT DOOR

To the average eye, Thorne has little more to offer than charm and the faint scent of paint and a cup of coffee that scalds the tongue. Unambitious and dedicated to the pursuit of - well - no one's really sure what yet, Thorne preserves appearance of the friendly neighbor next door with a humble part-time job at the art shop down the street and a freelance career in painting portraits and people's living rooms when they ask all sweet-like. You know, the one that brings you pie when you're new to the block and soup when you're sick. Not the captain from the war, two tours in Iraq, his best friend someone that he met at a failed VA meeting. But that's him, one and the same, and he'll come and paint your house for you free of charge anytime.

A SELECTIVE APHONIA

Have you seen the new neighbor at Fox Way? His fingers are always covered in paint.

Have you seen his cat? Have you heard his voice? There's a rumor around the town: he'll work free of charge for a nice conversation and a good cup of coffee.

But he doesn't talk. About himself, I mean. He's good at that - the avoiding game. How are you? How's the weather? Where am I from? Somewhere unimportant. Where are you from? Heard it's nice, never been. And he's good at making people forget it, too. Forget that he's a person, really. See, he makes a good model. A two dimensional figure that you turn around and around and around for clues to the real deal only to get lost in his earnest interest in your own life. You forget to search and he keeps getting to hide. He'd be an a*****e but he's too nice. He'd be a fraud but everything else is genuine, just not anything relating to his past.

He came to Ashdown to hide. That's the theory at least. From what? Who knows. Everyone has secrets, but this one has aphonia. Not the medical condition. Not like that. He just can't speak, he just doesn't. And if you get too close, scratch any rim of what makes him human, he gets flustered and flounders out of your life for awhile until you corner him in a grocery store while he's buying a new pot for his plants because the cat broke the old one.

"That's not true," Thorne says if you bring up his sudden disappearances, his cripplingly apparent aphonia, "I'm not avoiding anything - anyone - any - I mean, you."

Liar. This is his trouble: he's afraid to be an actual person because that means talking about his problems, his haunts, everything that chased him into Ashdown in the first place and he just can't handle the concept of that. Someone said that he used to be military. Saw some s**t, did some s**t, lost some. Lost a lot. So hell, maybe he's got PTSD too. Boy needs help but boy won't talk, gets incapable of it. Want to to close that gap and start a fire? He buys cat food at 3AM at the 24 hour market, takes coffee at that new cafe down the street, and he'd love to get to know you at one of the local bars until you ask to get to know him.

A DISAPPEARING ACT

There's always an escape route when Thorne really needs to get out. Whether it's an open path to the door, a cracked window, or a useful little fire escape, Thorne is always able to wriggle out of a situation. No matter the fall damage involved.

ANYTHING ELSE?

• 6'1", freckles, brown eyes & black hair, two shades too dark to be tan. has dimples and a smile that could melt the sun. he's built like an inverted dorito, can probably deadlift another person.
• mongolian-american. his mother immigrated after meeting his father. tenzing, thorne's older brother, and him both speak mongolian fluently.
• thorne speaks mongolian, english, and arabic fluently. he has a basic grasp on spanish and turkish.
• wears these thick-a** nerd glasses when he's reading or drawing. sometimes he just forgets to take them off and gets really confused when people start to stare.
• he has a cat and her name is Millicent. He also has a number of plants and the dirt on his floor is as permanent as the paint splatters.
• thorne suffers from ptsd. he's gone to a lot of VA therapy, but he's still not 100% and he kind of just ended up running away from it and everyone associated with him beforehand.
• thorne is TATTED UP it happened after his return from his second tour. he's got two full sleeves that connect across his shoulder blades and they pierce down onto his spine. He also has a half sleeve on his right thigh that he's planning more for.

• the right sleeve: it's largely floral and thorns (HA). the flowers actually have meaning because thorne is an idiot, but he probably isn't about to tell a lot of people about it. if someone looks closely, there are also sparrows trapped inside of the thorns and flower.
• left sleeve: very similar, but with traits of his religion and his culture invested in the sleeve and the floral pattern as well (mongolian & buddhism)
• right thigh: a large part-watercolor, part-geometric design of a wolf and a swallow, as well as more floral motifs

 

[shibrogane]

APPROVED !!